The present invention relates to a method of baking both sides of ingredients and an electric cooker used therefor, the method comprising disposing the ingredients between a lower die and an upper die, and baking upper and lower sides of the ingredients by heating the upper and lower dies with electric heaters with the same rated powers.
Such an electric cooker is disclosed in JP5453476B2 issued to the same applicant as one of this invention.
The electric cooker comprises a lower housing in which a lower die is mounted on the upper surface and an upper housing in which an upper die is mounted on the lower surface, rear ends of the upper and lower housings being pivotally mounted, the upper housing being rotated downward with respect to the lower housing, the upper surface of the lower housing coming in contact with the lower surface of the upper housing, the upper and lower dies being heated by heaters with the same rated power at the same time during a certain time so that the ingredients such as snack cakes are baked in recesses between the upper and lower surfaces.
In the electric cooker, the upper and lower dies are detachably disposed in the upper and lower housings and are replaced with differently shaped dies so that different snack cakes can be baked by the same electric cooker.
The electric cooker in JP5453476B2 involves the following problems.
The upper and lower dies are heated by the heaters with the same rated power during a certain time, the upper surface of the dough in contact with the upper die is burnt and is not uniformly baked as a whole. This is because the upper die is fanned by the lower die with heat, so that the temperature of the upper die is higher than that of the lower die by 10-15° C.
When different snack cakes are baked by replacing the upper and lower dies with differently-shaped dies, the surface of the dough is likely burnt. In order to bake different snack cakes, recesses in the upper die is shallower than those in the lower die and accordingly, the upper die is thinner than the lower die. The surface of the dough is likely burnt.
The reasons are reviewed. The upper die is shallower than the lower die, and the mass of the upper die is smaller than that of the lower die. The upper die with smaller mass is heated by the same heater for the lower die thereby causing the problem. The mass is proportional to heat capacity. Heat capacity reduces with smaller mass. Thus, in FIG. 13, the upper die is higher in temperature than the lower die. The surface of the dough in contact with upper die is excessively heated and is likely to be burnt.
In order to solve the problem and to get closer in temperature of the upper and lower dies, the mass of the upper die is set to be equal to that of the lower die. The temperatures of the upper and lower dies are detected by temperature sensors respectively. Based on detected temperature, consumed powers for the upper and lower heaters are controlled by temperature sensors respectively, or heaters with different rated power are manufactured to comply with the masses of the upper and lower dies.
However, the following disadvantages are involved in any of the methods.
Specifically, if the upper die is set to be equal to the lower die in mass, the upper die with the shallower recesses can be reduced in thickness, but has to be increased in mass by increasing its thickness. The cost for manufacturing the upper die comes to nothing, thereby increasing the cost for the upper die.
By detecting the temperatures of the upper and lower dies with the temperature sensors, consumed powers of the upper and lower heaters are controlled by the temperature control device respectively. So the control system and device become complicated.
Furthermore, in order to comply with the masses of the upper and lower dies, a plurality of different rated-power heaters has to be manufactured thereby increasing the cost if there are a lot of heaters,
In view of the disadvantages, it is an object of the invention to provide a method of baking both sides of ingredients and an electric cooker used therefor wherein ingredients are uniformly baked by making a lower die closer to an upper die in temperature, and the method and the cooker is inexpensive.